Happy OMNIversary!

[Omni]

One year! One year ago today I opened the doors and began the Scramble, the Omniverse's first storyline. It's been a difficult year of growing pains - the rules have had to be iterated and clarified endlessly, I've edited "How to Join" more times than I can count. We've survived the lulls and endured the rushes. But still, after one year, we're really only just beginning. There's a lot more to come, and I hope you all stick around to take part in it.

You will have noticed a lot of new updates coming through in the last couple of weeks. The rules pages are looking pretty decent now, compared to when I first put them up in their current form, and especially considering that when I launched they were just forum topics. I've gotta thank Harry Dresden for first making the HTML versions, without which I probably still wouldn't have 'em up by now.

Courtesy of Proto Man, our resident historian and now de facto NPC guy, a great number of NPC pages have been completely revamped with a bunch of new ones added too. I advise you to check out all the major NPCs as most of them have already been completed. I'm sure you'll join me in thanking Alex for the huge amount of time and effort he's put into writing these histories. The Omniverse has always been about making a world that feels shared and interconnected, and this gives a lot more fodder when it comes to writing those NPCs and using them in your storylines. Bearing in mind that big shots like The Emperor, King Bradley and Aragorn are probably too busy to speak to plebs like you, we do want people to use these NPCs. However, please ask first! Making the world contiguous means keeping track of who's where and doing what, after all.

One of the bigger updates has been the introduction of the Ascendancy system. This means that, beyond Influence, you have an end-goal for all your storyline efforts in particular verses. Don't mistake this as just a gameplay reward. The biggest effect of the Ascendancy system is the potential to change the course of Omniverse history. Taking over a verse will be something that ripples through the entire Omniverse. Don't take it lightly.

But while these things are undeniably awesome, it's not as though we didn't have anything planned just for today. As of now, four unique artefact quests are open to join, taking place in Coruscant, the Dataverse, the Pale Moors and the Frozen Fields. That means four one-of-a-kind items are up for grabs for whoever has the guts to go and take them. Just be on your toes. Artefacts are not for the faint of heart. While they'll give you a unique power, depending on the artefact, they can be grabbed by anyone if they defeat you. Might be a good time to brush up on the recently-revised fighting and competition rules ....

Thank you again to Alex as the creator of all these unique quests. And don't think that those are the last quests you'll be seeing, either. These are only a small portion of what we've got planned.

Finally I want to say thank you to everyone who's joined and roleplayed over the last year. While we staff members get to be flashy and take credit for things, the members are the site. Whether you've been here from the beginning or you've just joined, here's a virtual high five from me to you for taking a look at the weird-ass premise and deciding to give it a shot. Your storylines are what make up the site, and I read pretty much every one of them. Here's to another year of great storylines. Cheers!